


Five Second Rule

by provocative_envy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Hockey, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Awkward Flirting, Eventual Romance, Humor, M/M, Mutual Pining, Roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-05-11
Packaged: 2019-05-05 01:18:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14606022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/provocative_envy/pseuds/provocative_envy
Summary: "Oh," Oliver's new roommate sighs when they first meet, "you're anathlete."The guy says "athlete" the way most people might say "convicted serial killer", but Oliver doesn't really notice until it's too late.





	Five Second Rule

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Brightki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brightki/gifts).



> yolo

* * *

 

"Oh," Oliver's new roommate sighs when they first meet, "you're an  _athlete_." 

The guy says "athlete" the way most people might say "convicted serial killer", but Oliver doesn't really notice until it's too late.

 

* * *

 

Percy Weasley is tall. 

Percy Weasley is skinny. 

Percy Weasley has copper-red hair and sky-blue eyes and more freckles than Oliver could ever hope to count, not that he's trying.  

Percy Weasley wakes up at six every day, even on weekends, and has an after-market fingerprint scanner installed on his laptop. He irons his dress socks, and he wears bowties to class, and he spends most of his time either frantically studying or  _preparing_  to frantically study, which is a whole separate thing, apparently, and involves a lot of ballpoint pens and mood lighting and flimsy paper cups of Red Bull because the cans crinkle too loudly and  _it's distracting, Wood, honestly_ _, don't you have_ _a_ puck _to tape_ _,_ _or something?_  

Oliver thinks he should probably be more offended by Percy Weasley than he actually is. 

 

* * *

 

"So, um," Oliver begins, scratching awkwardly at the nape of his neck. He's sweating, a little, and he wonders if Percy had cranked the heat up without telling him. "Our first game is on Saturday, at seven, and I've got a couple of extra tickets that...I mean...you could come?" 

Percy frowns down at his watch. "Come to what?" 

"Um." Oliver doesn't blink. He read somewhere once that blinking was a telltale sign of nerves, and he quit doing it during faceoffs ages ago. "My—our first game?" 

"Wait, what?" Percy asks, bending over to rifle through the bottom drawer of his desk. His khakis are tailored, maybe. Oliver isn't sure. They  _look_  tailored. "What game?" 

"I'm—you know I'm on the hockey team, right? Like. I'm the captain?" 

" _Of course_  I know you're on the—have you seen my calculator? The one with the green tape on the front?" 

"You mentioned needing to change the battery," Oliver replies, semi-automatically, before clearing his throat and glancing away, towards the spot next to his bed where he stores his gear bag. "But, um—the game, yeah, it's at seven. On Saturday. And it's, you know, sold out, but if you wanted to—" 

"I have my quarterly dinner at the Dean's house on Sunday," Percy says, standing up again, stretching his arms above his head, exposing the long, lean, surprisingly well-muscled line of his back. "Sorry." 

Oliver grunts, and Percy rolls his shoulders, twisting his torso around, partially untucking the tail of his crisp white button-down. 

Oliver doesn't mention it. 

 

* * *

 

Oliver scores the game-winning goal in overtime, and McLaggen drags him out to get drunk with the rest of the team immediately afterwards.  

 _u_ _shld_ _hve_ _cum 2nite,_  Oliver texts Percy, squinting blearily at his phone as he types,  _i_ _ws_ _so_ _goooiid_ _u_ _wld_ _hv_ _totly_ _falln_ _in luv w hockey its_ _th_ _bst_ _sporttt_ _n the_ _wurld_  

McLaggen drops a tray of unnaturally, medicinally red drinks onto the table, and Oliver tucks his phone into his sweatshirt pocket. It's midnight, which means Percy is almost definitely already sleeping, but even if he  _i_ _sn't_ almost definitely already sleeping, he's too paranoid to turn his read receipts on so it isn't like Oliver is going to  _know_ if Percy's ignoring him or not.  

" _O captain, my captain!"_  McLaggen yells, off-key, slinging an arm around Oliver's neck and  _squeezing_  just the slightest bit too hard. "I swear to god, man, like, no homo but I would suck your dick  _right the fuck_ _now_  if I could feel my tongue, like, at all." 

Oliver's phone buzzes once, and then twice, and then stops. 

 

* * *

 

"Here," Percy says tartly, throwing an unopened bottle of Crystal Geyser and a blister pack of Advil at Oliver's chest. "I would have made sure you took this last night, but you passed out before I could get you to open your mouth." 

Oliver swallows, and then winces at the taste of his own saliva, and then wonders—idly, hysterically—why his shirt is missing. "Um. How did I—did you? What?" 

"Your  _team_ ," Percy sneers the word, "let you drink what I can only imagine was a  _gallon_ of glorified rubbing alcohol." 

"I...yeah," Oliver says blankly, scraping his thumbnail under the label on the water bottle. There's a bruise forming on his ribs, tender and kind of sullenly aching. He pokes at it with his free hand. "I mean. We won." 

"Believe me, I  _know,_ " Percy huffs, cheeks abruptly flooding with color. He averts his gaze, eyebrows pinching together. "Anyway. Congratulations. You deserve every second of your hangover." 

Oliver sips his water. 

For a redhead, Percy doesn't really blush very often. 

 

* * *

 

There's a haphazard pile of grease-splotchy napkins on the folding poker table McLaggen had shown up with, and a string of melted cheese stuck to Percy's chin that he's chasing with the tip of his tongue, expression somehow indignant and irritated and  _flustered_ , all at once. 

"This is asinine," Percy hisses, leveling a strangely wistful glare in the direction of his bookshelf, where he keeps his  _Band of Brothers_  boxset. "You can't just—you can't just  _not shuffle the cards_." 

McLaggen burps into his fist. "I can do whatever the fuck I want, gingersnap." 

"No, you can't," Oliver says quickly. There's a lukewarm thirty-rack of Bud Light on the floor, and part of the cardboard corner closest to his foot has been torn open. "Does anyone want another beer?" 

Percy scowls. "No, I want  _Cormac Mc-Academic Probation_  to stop  _cheating_." 

"Hey, fuck you," McLaggen protests, waving his pizza crust around, flakes of parmesan flying. "Woody, why is this dude even here, he's fucking ruining Uno." 

Oliver flexes his fingers around the cup he'd poured his beer into, the ruddy pink calluses on his palms rough against the plastic. 

He really should've just asked Percy to go skating. 

 

* * *

 

Oliver sprains his wrist and is banned from the practice rink for a week. 

"Are you..." Percy trails off, visibly uncomfortable. "Are you okay?" 

Oliver furrows his brow. "I'm fine. Just—you know. Bored." 

"Right. Of course. It's just—" 

"It's just what?" Oliver asks, shifting around on his bed, trying not to jostle his wrist too much. He'd been given a brace, an ugly gray contraption with a confusing number of Velcro straps that's been making it virtually impossible to jerk off.  

Percy grimaces. "You haven't...gone outside? In a while?" 

Oliver thinks about that. "I went to class yesterday. Principles of—whatever. Urban Development. We had a quiz." 

"No, yes, I know, I made you flashcards for it, if you don't set the curve we're  _burning down the engineering complex_." 

Oliver smiles fondly. "You called my handwriting illegible." 

"Because it  _is_." 

"I can barely hold a pencil. I'm injured." 

"I  _know_ , and that's what I'm—" Percy's jaw clicks shut. "You aren't shaving, you've been wearing the same sweatpants since Monday, and you haven't kept me up all night with one of your—your  _hockey matches—_ " 

" _Hockey matches_ ," Oliver echoes. "Seriously?" 

Percy narrows his eyes. "I have a meeting with my adviser right now. If you haven't showered by the time I get back, I'm throwing you in there myself." 

The paper-thin skin on the inside of Oliver's wrist starts to itch. 

 

* * *

 

Percy has never mentioned his family before, but he sometimes comes back from the library looking like he's either seen a ghost or gotten into a fist fight with one, and while Oliver doesn't  _immediately_  connect the dots, he does  _eventually_. 

"My little sister," Percy says stiffly, "she plays—she's on the women's hockey team. Somewhere else. Somewhere—not here." 

Oliver stares at the small mountain of dirty laundry he's sorting. Most of it's his Under Armour, which he suspects he's supposed to wash separately, but there's a pair of burgundy plaid flannel pajama bottoms floating around, too, so he figures it's worth it to be thorough. They aren't his size.  

"Oh, yeah?" Oliver asks. "She any good?" 

Percy fidgets with the buttons on the side of his phone. "I don't know." 

"Uh. What does that—what?" 

"I think she must be," Percy goes on, crossing and uncrossing his arms. "Good, I mean. There were—there've been articles. Written about her. She was shortlisted for the Olympics roster, I guess, which—that's impressive, right? For her age?" 

Oliver is tempted to point out that he doesn't actually know how old Percy's sister is. Something about the weight of Percy's voice, though—strained around the edges, cracked through the center, obnoxiously proud but also riddled with the faintest trace of  _anxiety_ —it makes Oliver hesitate. 

"Women's hockey is crazy competitive," Oliver offers, plucking a stray scrap of used stick tape off one of his socks. "Tons of talent, not a ton of...opportunities. So, yeah, she must be  _really_ good. That's awesome, man." 

Percy doesn't respond for a while. He's hovering near his bed, wavering, like he can't decide if he's going to lay down or sit down or leave. The sleeves of his cardigan are rolled up to his elbows, uncharacteristically messy, and he's wearing bulky-framed horn-rimmed glasses instead of contacts like he usually does. 

"I wasn't very nice to her," Percy finally murmurs, quietly enough that Oliver has to hold his breath in order to hear what he says next. "When I left home." 

Oliver had been drafted in the fourth round, ninety-ninth overall. After he graduates, he's unlikely to ever play anything but semi-pro hockey in half-full community-center arenas, no matter how hard he works, no matter how badly he wants  _more_ , because there isn't, as far as he's aware, a way for him to trigger another growth spurt, or undo the damage of his most recent concussion, or transform into a generational talent overnight. 

He doesn't quite know how to articulate any of that to Percy, and he's not quite sure he even needs to. 

Percy's a lot smarter than him; he'll figure it out. 

 

* * *

 

McLaggen gleefully chucks a bright yellow no-contact jersey at Percy, and then pulls out his phone, snapping a picture. 

"Go away," Oliver says, long-suffering, as he tapes an extra stick. "And delete that." 

"Fuck off, this is  _art_ ," McLaggen retorts. He's scrolling through a list of Snapchat filters, hair damp and spiky from his post-scrimmage shower. "Flower crown? Puppy? Sparkles? Limited edition Taco Bell Doritos Locos—" 

"Am I doing this incorrectly?" Percy interrupts, gesturing impatiently to his skate laces. They're knotted unevenly, too tight in some places and too loose in others. "Are they—is this right?"

McLaggenscoffs loudly, disdainfully, before crouching down to take a selfie with Percy's skates. 

Oliver scrubs at his forehead with the heel of his palm.  

 

* * *

 

Oliver is in the middle of yanking on a fresh pair of boxers when the door swings open. 

"I swear to  _god_ ," Percy is muttering as he unwinds what looks like a handmade wool scarf from around his neck, "it's like these, these  _philistines_  have never read past the table of contents of a  _single_ —" He breaks off, knuckles going white around the smooth leather handles of his satchel. His eyes are pinned to Oliver's chest, wide and curious and so, so blue. "Oh." 

Oliver freezes, back still slightly arched, arms still slightly bent, hips still slightly tilted forward, and wonders if there's a scientific explanation for how dry his mouth suddenly feels. There is, probably. Percy would know. 

"Hey," Oliver manages. "You're—um. Early." 

Percy licks his lips. "Group projects are an affront to higher education." 

"I play a team sport." 

"I've been working on not holding that against you." 

Oliver snorts out a laugh, breathless, helpless, only a little bit strangled. "Yeah? How's that going?" 

The room seems to shrink, then, the space between them folding in on itself like an accordion, while the tension that's been simmering low and slow since Oliver had chanced a look up, had processed the sound of a lock clicking and a doorknob turning—it's flaring brighter, burning hotter.  

"Um." Percy is blinking rapidly, gaze going in and out of focus, mouth falling open, wet and lush and red and mesmerizing as he drops his satchel, tosses his scarf aside, takes a short series of steps towards Oliver. "Exceeding expectations." 

 

* * *

 

Oliver wakes up to a blizzard outside and a long, freckled, deceptively strong arm around his waist. 

"Stay," Percy mumbles, lips brushing the back of Oliver's neck. It's incidental contact, not firm enough to qualify as a real kiss, but Oliver still presses into it, tingles and shivers and curls his toes when he feels the curve of Percy's smile, because Percy's knee is slotted between his own, their fingers tangled together against the flat of his lower abdomen, and it's all adding up. Building. "Right here." 

The alarm clock on Percy's bedside table reads 8:38. 

Oliver doesn't think either of them have anywhere to be for a while. 

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> [come join me in hell](http://www.provocative-envy.tumblr.com)


End file.
